Erik is a baseball fan who has been attending baseball games and snagging baseballs regularly since 2008.

5-1-09 PNC Park

After a six day lay off to get better after my 4/25 ankle injury, I got back into action today. I arrived at the gates at 4:10 or so, and was 3rd in line.

When the gates opened, I ran into the bleachers and immediately found ball #1, laying in the front row of section 138. I walked around in each section before turning my attention to the action on the field, and found another Easter egg in Section 136 about 5 rows back, it was ball #2.

The Pirates were hitting for about 10 more minutes, and then the Reds were going to hit. Near the end of the Pirates portion of Batting Practice, Karstens threw a ball to a kid about 6 rows back. Either the throw was a little off, and the kid completely missed the ball. It ricocheted right to me, ball #3. I was then faced with the choice of keeping the ball, or giving it to the kid. I decided to be charitable and glove flipped the ball to the kid, who thanked me.

The Reds then came out to hit. At the end of the Pirates portion of batting practice, a Pirate had thrown a ball into the crowd that someone misplayed. The ball was laying on the edge of the warning track. I didn’t even think about doing the glove trick, because it was directly in the sight line of a security guard.

I changed into my Reds gear, and stood in the front row directly in front of the ball, and waited. Jerry Hairston came over to left center field.

4 Comments

Rub some dirt on it! Way to fight through it man! My name is Brian by the way, found you on Zack’s blog. Aspiring ballhawk, only 5 in my collection, but I didn’t start until last August. What did you do to your ankle, rol it? Been there, it sucks. Hope you tear ’em up this weekend!
Brianhttp://txbaseballfan.mlblogs.com

Nice to see you back in the swing of things Erik! The ballhawk league has me currently at 14 balls, I am at 11 balls however. I don’t know where the mix up occurred. No biggie. So far this week I have 5 balls in 2 games, bringing me to 16 balls in 9 games. I am going to a game tomorrow and hope to end the week on a good note. The gates open a half hour earlier for Saturday games. So, even though weekend games are more heavily attended, I am hoping that the extra 30 minutes will pay off with a decent outing.

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